How They Described It: In the first women’s bout to ever take place in the UFC
Octagon, bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and challenger Liz Carmouche made history with style. Yet despite Rousey’s status as the Queen of the sport, Carmouche nearly spoiled the party when she had the champion seconds away from a submission defeat. In the end though, it was Rousey prevailing late in the first round with her trademark armbar.

Before we go any further, it’s okay: This is the first time we’ve heard of Andrade, too.

What we know about Andrade – or “Bate Estaca” as her friends call her – is that at twenty-one years old she’ll be the youngest female fighter in the UFC. She has been competing professionally for almost two years now and has compiled an impressive 9-2 record with all of her victories coming by stoppage. Granted, six of those nine victories came over fighters who were making their professional MMA debuts, but the fact that she has fought nine times since last May is still extremely impressive. Her most recent victory came over Milana Dudieva in April.

UFC on FOX 8 is already scheduled to feature the women’s bantamweight match between Julie Kedzie and Germaine de Randamie, so if Tate vs. Carmouche gets the green-light, the 7/27 UFC card will be the first to feature two women’s bouts on the same night. Any early predictions?

(And the song Ronda chose to accompany this momentous occasion with? Oh, you best believe it was some Geto Boys. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.)

Of all the controversy that was brought to light in the weeks following the announcement of UFC 157 (WOMEN HEADLINERS?!, Dan Henderson playing second fiddle to WOMEN HEADLINERS?!, etc.), one issue that seemed to cling around more than most was that of pay-per-view buys. Specifically, how the UFC honestly expected a card featuring WOMEN HEADLINERS to draw diddly squat for viewers in the male-dominated sport of MMA. Because if we wanted to see two broads fight over a leather and gold belt, we’d go to Macy’s on Black Friday, amiright?

Well, we hate to spoil the misogynist fantasy, but it looks like WMMA (or at least Ronda Rousey) could turn out to be a huge draw for the UFC. The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer spoke earlier today about the preliminary PPV estimates for UFC 157 and suffice it to say, they are a lot better than many of us would have predicted:

Over 400,000….they’re absolutely thrilled. The show, it was…they had predicted 250. Budgeted 250, I shouldn’t say predicted. But I mean, the predictions internally were 250-300. So they blew away their predictions, big time…They’re expecting big replay buys. Big replay buys means 25,000-30,000 more than they have right now. It could do mid fours, maybe more, but that’s a nice number to say.

Poor Miesha Tate. It’s bad enough that she nearly had her arm ripped from her torso when she first fought Ronda Rousey, but the fact that she is forced to relive it each and every time a microphone is shoved in front of her face has to leave her feeling somewhat bitter about the whole experience, and perhaps rightfully so.

Take last Saturday for instance, when Tate and her upcoming opponent Cat Zingano — both of whom appeared to be sponsored by either Lucky Charms or Zubaz Pants — were interviewed by Ariel Helwani following Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche’s historic battle at UFC 157. While one would think that Tate would put her personal differences with Ronda aside for a moment and simply congratulate her for the achievement, Tate opted rather to declare that she will “rip [Rousey's] face off in the rematch.” Um, Miesha, your next opponent is actually the woman who was standing right next to you when you all but wrote her off. Awkward.

In fact, Tate was spilling haterade so vigorously that even Zingano jumped in line for a glass, declaring that Rousey had “a lot of holes in [her] game” after first saying how proud she was of the first WMMA fight in UFC History and blah blah blah. On the opposite end of the spectrum, both Tate and Zingano were impressed by Carmouche’s performance despite the fact that she lost and that they would have totally finished Rousey if put in the same situation.

And fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) for Tate or Zingano, it’s looking like the winner of their upcoming fight will be given the opportunity to put her money where her mouth is. During the UFC 157 post-fight show on FUEL TV, Rousey mentioned that she “is interested” in the outcome of the matchup and will be in attendance when Tate and Zingano face off in Vegas on April 13th. So make sure to tune in for the chance to witness the first ever 209 gang-stomping in WMMA History.

First place: Alan K, who guessed the armbar stoppage for Rousey within nine seconds (!), and got the judges’ scores exactly correct in the Machida vs. Henderson decision. Alan will receive the “Ronda Knows” and “Keep Calm and Break Arms” t-shirt package, courtesy of Fight Chix.

Second place: Brian001, who predicted a much earlier armbar stoppage for Rousey, but also predicted the judges’ scores perfectly for the co-main event. Brian will receive his choice of one of the aforementioned shirts.

Alan/Brian, please e-mail your full name, shirt size (including gender of choice), and address to contest@cagepotato.com, and we’ll get you hooked up ASAP. As for everybody else, there’s no law saying you can’t acquire these t-shirts the old-fashioned way. Visit FightChix.com, pick up a shirt or two, and show the world that you’re an enlightened human being who supports women pounding on each other. Thanks for playing, guys!

Make no mistake, no matter how last night’s main event was going to end, it was going to be an important moment in UFC history. For the first time in the promotion’s history, two female athletes would be competing in the UFC. Squash match or not, the historical significance of the fight and the freshly minted UFC Women’s Bantamweight title were enough to bump the fight up to main event status.

I’ve seen dozens of writers today write about how “predictably” the main event ended, but I can’t help but feel that this does a severe injustice to the fight we were treated to. Yes, it ended in a first round armbar victory for Ronda Rousey, and no, literally nothing else about this fight was predictable.

This is in large part a credit to challenger Liz Carmouche. Few people gave Carmouche any sort of chance to win, as clearly reflected by the betting odds for the fight. Yet for the first time last night, Carmouche was able to expose holes in Rousey’s game, and make the women’s champion look beatable. She wasn’t Rousey’s slightly-resistant grappling dummy – she was a very worthy challenger who almost finished Rousey with a rear-naked choke, and has teeth marks on her arm to show for it. Let’s all stop and admit that none of us expected this from her.

Leading us through the UFC 157 main card will be actual fighterElias Cepeda, who will be slapping down round-by-round results after the jump beginning at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please throw in your own insightful commentary in the comments section. Thanks for joining us.

(This is where we’d normally tell you Taters to keep it in your pants, but since Ronda’s barely keeping it it hers..)

Ronda Rousey, Liz Carmouche, and the rest of the 24 fighters competing at tomorrow’s UFC 157: One Small Step for the UFC, One Giant Leap for Womankind event will be hitting the scales tonight starting at 7 p.m. EST. It’s a card that is all but guaranteed to deliver thrills from top-to-bottom, especially in light of the UFC’s recently implemented “Dan Hardy Stipulation” that renders all UFC contracts null and void should the fighter not “bring it every fucking time.” I’m just reading the press release, folks.

Anyway, join us after the jump for a video of the weigh-ins along with the fastest goddamn results in the entire goddamn internet. Seriously, we dare you to find another MMA site that updates the results faster than we do. You will not.

For the first time in UFC history, a card will not only feature but be headlined by a women’s title fight in the bantamweight division. We know what you’re thinking, “How are they going to fit an entire kitchen into the octagon?” but hear us out for a second. Pitting Olympic bronze medalist Ronda Rousey against Marine tuff Liz Carmouche, UFC 157 will look to break down the wall that has existed between men’s and women’s MMA for almosttwo years now. We kid, we kid, but will the UFC’s women’s division steal the show come Saturday night? And technically speaking, can you steal a show when you are the main event? These questions and others will be answered this Saturday night in Anaheim at the (R)Honda Center.

And with any big MMA event comes the opportunity to chip away at (or add to) those crippling debts we all are surely facing. So join us after the jump as we highlight some of the undercard and all the main card bouts for UFC 157 with the hopes of cashing in on some attractive betting lines, which come courtesy of BestFighOdds as always.

Currently, Chiesa is right around -225, but look for that line to close around -300 by fight night. Anton has been more of a threat on the mat than on his feet thus far in his UFC run, but giving up almost half a foot in height to the Alpha Male-affiliated Chiesa will do him no favors in either department. Chiesa should be able to control this fight with his size advantage and continue his Cinderella story in the UFC.